Director: Kurt Neumann
Cast: Al Hedison, Patricia Owens, Vincent Price, Herbert Marshall
Have I Seen it Before: Never. I’m a little surprised as well. I’ve seen the remade The Fly (1986) any number of times, but the original stayed just off my radar. If it hadn’t been the one-two punch of picking up the Shout! Factory box set of all the Fly-films, and that one of my co-hosts on Beyond the Cabin in the Woods really made the case for this being the superior attempt at the story, I might never have gotten around to it.
Did I Like It: I’m not sure why precisely I would have resisted as long as I did. I have no qualms about claiming 50s Sci-Fi as a favorite. Vincent Price has never been bad, even when he was in something horrible.
Even so, the Goldblum version is so good, that I can help but sit through large swaths of this resolute in my commitment to not enjoy it all that much. It’s a bit too mannered for it’s own good. Is it possible it’s just too Canadian for it’s own good, making the entire affair seem a bit ridiculous, beyond that which one might expect to find in a story where a man slowly turns into a fly.
But damned if the thing didn’t win me over after a bit. There’s no gore to set one’s teeth on edge. The eventual makeup work is quite correctly hidden for most of the movie, because once it is finally revealed its just as likely to amuse as it is shock or horrify. But there are a couple of added dimensions here that the other film doesn’t bother to use. For one, the terrible fate of the family cat in this film is far more frightening than anything that happens to any baboon in another movie. The notion that there might be some fate beyond the act of teleportation that still allows one to meow so that people can hear it is one of those unnerving elements of a horror movie that stick with you long after it is over. For another thing, there is the idea that not only there is a man who is slowly becoming more fly-like with every passing moment, but there’s also a fly who is slowly becoming more man-like with every passing moment. The “help me” moment may be famous, but it plays far better than its reputation suggests.